Two top-ranked US universities, New York University and Duke University, are offering courses on cryptocurrencies for the first time. Professor Geoffrey Miller taught the first class of NYU’s new course, The Law and Business of Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies, yesterday. 35 students attended the session – the first in a series of 14 – which covered the fundamentals of money.

Miller, a faculty member at NYU’s law school, teaches the course with Professor David Yermack, who is on the faculty of the university’s business school. Yermack says the course aims to examine the impact of cryptocurrencies on the fundamental principles that underpin current notions of law and finance.

“The course is not so much about teaching a knowledge of bitcoin, but it’s to show how some of the issues about property, finance and contracts are going to change very quickly in the next century. The technology is forcing people to reexamine long-held assumptions.”

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Yermack and Miller are joined by Duke University Finance Professor Campbell Harvey, who is preparing a course on cryptocurrencies that will be offered to students next spring. Both schools at NYU and Duke are ranked in the top 10 of their respective categories in the US News and World Report college rankings. Notably, Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam graduated from Duke in 2010.

Harvey’s course at Duke is titled Innovation, Disruption and Cryptoventures and will focus on the potential of businesses that use the block chain. The course will be offered to students at Duke’s computer science department and its law and business schools. Harvey is confident that the course will be a hit with students. He said: “I think it’s going to be a blockbuster. The problem will be turning people away.”

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Gambling is big business, and online gambling represents a significant and growing proportion of that business – about 8% currently. Research company H2 Gambling Capital, which values the online gambling market in terms of gross winnings, put the global market value at €21.73bn ($28.54bn) in 2012. Furthermore, the firm expects a 9.13% compound annual growth rate through 2015.

Right now bitcoin gambling only accounts for a tiny percentage of the total of online gambling revenues. However, it is clear that the opportunity exists to make significant income within the industry and, with bitcoin’s advantages in terms of low-cost, speedy payments, cryptocurrency-based gambling firms are doing their best to do just that.

The bitcoin world loves to gamble, in one form or another. In his book, The Anatomy of a Money-like Informational Commodity, Tim Swanson points out that half the transactions on the bitcoin network were being used to transmit bets to SatoshiDice, one of the earliest bitcoin betting sites, created by Eric Voorhees.

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Further, an analysis in August 2013 showed that roughly 5% of the value of all bitcoin transactions in June that year were flowing through SatoshiDice. That means lots of very small transactions, which is, after all, one thing that cryptocurrencies are very good at.

Ivan Montik, CEO at SoftSwiss, provides online casino software for entrepreneurs, and its solutions support fiat and bitcoin gambling. “We’ve got about 400 requests for the launch of a bitcoin casino in the last six months,” he said. “We constantly have three to five casinos in the set-up phase, and could have had more if we had more resources.” Not all bitcoin bets are low in value. Montik said that there are some high rollers in crypto-land.

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Singapore’s latest exchange, CRXzone, has become the first platform to offer both litecoin and bitcoin trading in the country. Like others in the Asian region, the exchange aims to attract an international customer base by offering additional bitcoin services beyond trading.

One of CRXzone’s key strategies to attract a wide customer base is its range of account funding and withdrawal options. As well as the usual bank transfers, the exchange offers international payment processor options like OKPAY, Egopay, and PerfectMoney.

CRXzone CEO Pawan Kumar tends to refer to other payment networks as ‘digital currencies’ too, blurring the line somewhat between cryptocurrencies and widely-used international payment networks. This is probably due to his 25-year experience in the IT industry, experience with online businesses and involvement in digital payment networks “since the time of E-gold”.

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While all offer speed and cost advantages over traditional currencies, Kumar said that bitcoin’s decentralized nature made it an attractive option. “I personally feel […] bitcoin will slowly takeover all other digital currencies and remain a useful tool for digital payments which are growing day by day.”

One of CRXzone’s selling points is its litecoin trading option, despite the popular altcoin’s image taking a battering following its recent price slump to $5 and lower. “We still believe that litecoin will survive the current downward trend. It is well known and widely used crypto after the bitcoin [sic]. Leverage trading seems to be a reason for the current price slump, as per my personal judgement.”

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Air Lituanica is now accepting bitcoin for flight tickets as part of its ongoing bid to embrace new and innovative methods of serving customers. With the news, the two-plane, Lithuania-based airline becomes the second airline, and second in eastern Europe, to add bitcoin payments following airBaltic’s July announcement.

In a blog post, Air Lituanica director of commerce Simonas Bartku illustrated the benefits bitcoin can bring to travel businesses, writing: “Bitcoin payments are highly beneficial for the aviation market – this currency helps to attract more buyers from abroad as bitcoins can be used anywhere in the world.”

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Air Lituanica’s statements provide the latest evidence that bitcoin is gaining traction beyond the airline industry in the wider global travel industry, and that a growing number of consumers and businesses in this sector are looking to tap digital currency as a solution.

Long term, digital currency proponents believe the technology can provide real convenience to travelers due to the hassles and high fees associated with currency conversion as well as the high risk of fraud international travelers face. Further, it seems a growing number of businesses are looking to help the community test its prediction.

In addition to appealing to existing travel companies like Air Lituanica, bitcoin is also helping savvy entrepreneurs gain a foothold in the space. For example, just last week, Bali-based travel booking agency BitcoinTour launched with the goal of making it easier for travelers to use bitcoin to visit the popular island.

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Multinational bitcoin exchange igot will today launch the first bitcoin exchange in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to capitalize on the unique opportunity posed by the market.

The Australia-based company’s founder Rick Day told the new exchange will operate with a Commercial Brokerage License, approved by the local government. It has also secured local banking partners for direct deposits and withdrawals in UAE dirhams (AED).

Igot has hired a small team for business development and customer support for its Dubai office. Day added that igot will continue to offer the same flat 1% trading fee to all its customers worldwide, with no additional fees for deposits or withdrawals in either bitcoin or fiat currencies.

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The exchange is aimed more at consumers than professional traders, with a simple buy-sell interface. However, it recently implemented a feature called ‘Future Trade’ which functions like limit orders on a more advanced exchange, giving customers the option to set their price and wait for bitcoin’s value to rise or fall to that level before executing the trade.

As well as bank access, igot is also working with local payment processors to give users more options in the coming months. As well as having a concentration of high net-worth individuals among its citizens, about 60% of the UAE’s workforce consists of expat Indian workers, both professional and manual, who often send their money back home.

In fact, foreign citizens make up a staggering 91% of the UAE’s population of 9.2 million, with 1 million Indians representing the country’s largest overall group. Day said that, given that India is currently igot’s largest market outside Australia, its presence in the UAE puts the company in a very interesting position. “Our strategy to expand igot is based on a pairing system. India is one of our best performing markets. In terms of trade volumes, I think we’re the biggest local exchange there. Indians sent $70bn home in 2012.”

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Bitcoin service provider Xapo has launched a new feature that enables users to purchase bitcoins directly from the company. The company announced the new service, Xapo Deposit, via its blog earlier this week. According to Xapo, users can now send euro and US dollar payments via wire transfer and receive bitcoin in return.

Xapo’s blog post pointed to its bitcoin debit card, wallet and insured vault storage as evidence that it has “come full circle” in offering customers the ability to secure, transact and now acquire bitcoins. Now that Xapo users can reload their accounts without much hassle, it is evident that the company is positioning itself as a one-stop service for bitcoin.

From start to finish, Xapo’s buying process takes just three steps. Firstly, a user must log in to their Xapo account and click the ‘deposit’ button on their wallet homepage. Next, a page will open with all the relevant details for the wire transfer, including a personalised ‘Xapo reference code’. Once the wire transfer has been completed, the user will receive a confirmation email. Xapo claims the funds will arrive in their bitcoin account between two and five days later.

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Fidor Bank has partnered with Xapo to enable the wire transfers, though Xapo representatives have not been contacted to confirm this. Fidor is known for its cryptocurrency-friendly approach, recently becoming the first bank to integrate Ripple’s payment protocol.

Xapo will charge a fee of 1% for this conversion and adds that banks may charge additional fees to wire these funds. With regards to the conversion rate the service uses, Xapo’s website states: “Deposits will be converted using market rates applicable at the time of the conversion (including any third-party fees we are required to pay, which will not exceed 0.3%). Xapo does not guarantee a particular conversion rate.”

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